Novel medical technique: antiprotonic imaging

The authors illustrate how a beam of antiprotons can be used to make density measurements in biological and other similar materials by measuring the energy loss per unit length, dE/dx, for stopping antiprotons. These measurements are displayed using computer graphic techniques to produce high resolution images comparable to those produced by state of the art X-ray computer assisted tomography, (CAT). Unlike computer assisted tomographic methods, antiproton imaging directly measures dE/dx at any point in the medium, and requires no reconstruction algorithms. Monte Carlo techniques have been used to explore the quality of antiprotonic imaging. The images produced by this method are presented, discussed and compared to X-ray CAT scans. Theoretically there are no limits to the resolution of antiprotonic imaging, but the technique is limited by radiation dosage and data processing. The authors estimate that, in general, one would be able to obtain images from their antiprotonic technique of comparable quality to CAT images, with a substantial reduction in the dose delivered to the patient